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Gardy wins first challenge after lengthy process

Twins skipper forced to pull starter Correia as result of roughly five-minute review

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Twins challenge, call overturned 6:58

4/2/14: The Twins challenge a catch ruling in the 7th and after review the call is overturned and runners are placed at first and second

By Rhett Bollinger
/
MLB.com |

CHICAGO -- Ron Gardenhire won his first challenge of the year against the White Sox on Wednesday, but the Twins' manager came away displeased with how long the process took.

Gardenhire asked for a review on what was initially ruled a catch by Adam Eaton in the seventh inning of the Twins' eventual 7-6 loss in 11 innings, and the play was ultimately overturned. But the process took roughly five minutes, and Gardenhire said it led to his decision to remove right-hander Kevin Correia from the game after six effective innings.

"It took a long time," Gardenhire said. "I don't know what was going on, but it took an awful long time and you end up losing your starter because of it. You just have to live with it."

Major League Baseball released a statement on why the play took so long to be overturned via replay.

"We had two replays occur at the same exact time [the other was in Oakland], and while we were prepared, it made the review processes take longer than normal," the statement read. "Overall, we are pleased with the first few days of the new system, and we do not expect the length of the review in today's Twins-White Sox game to be typical."

With White Sox reliever Daniel Webb pitching and Trevor Plouffe at first base with nobody out, Oswaldo Arcia lifted a fly ball to center field that Eaton appeared to catch but bobbled and dropped as he tried to transfer the ball from his glove.

After the call was overturned, Plouffe was allowed to advance to second even though he never tried to go to second on the fly ball, which he believed was caught.

White Sox manager Robin Ventura and Eaton both agreed it was the correct call to overturn the catch, as Eaton didn't properly take the ball out of his glove on the play.

"He bobbled it enough to call it no-catch," Ventura said. "And we didn't do a good enough job -- even if he dropped it -- to try to get him at second base, so they awarded him second base."

"I thought I had it caught, but with the new replay, they go by the rule book -- let's put it that way," Eaton said. "I just need to catch it and make sure I transfer it.

But the bigger issue was that it caused Gardenhire to take Correia out of the game after throwing just 82 pitches. Correia gave up three runs (two earned) on five hits, and retired 13 of the last 15 batters he faced.

"It wasn't really a situation where I couldn't go out there, but when it's 35 degrees and I don't know how long that inning was taking anyways, it pretty much came down to that review," Correia said. "Without that review, I would've gone back out. Even though it went our way, we didn't get anything else out of it and I had to come out of the game."